


resolute

by Vail



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Anora-Centric, Character Study, Gen, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 07:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3682755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vail/pseuds/Vail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anora was tired. Tired, and lonely, and she didn’t want to shake the hand of the woman who had killed her father with the same hands that had killed the Archdemon. [Art fill and Character Study on Anora, 2 years post-Blight.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	resolute

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psikeval](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psikeval/gifts).



> HAPPY WINTERSEND EXCHANGE! I originally only planned to write a few lines to go with my art fill, but it kind of blew up a little. I really enjoyed working on this, so I hope you like it and that it hits all the marks you were looking for! I love Anora as well, so it seemed like the right choice to fulfill your first prompt (: 
> 
> Full-size of the art can be found here: http://i.imgur.com/yhrsnuI.png  
>  ~~And I will be posting it to be my tumblr once we are no longer anonymous!~~  
>  Now that the exchange has been de-anoned, link to the art on tumblr: http://amaranthined.tumblr.com/post/116697001298

 

Silence.

 

Anora looked out the window, inhaling deeply. The air was fresh and cold – it had been so long since she left the castle that she’d forgotten the smell of winter. It had been almost a month of meeting with diplomats and courtiers, leaving no time for herself.

 

Down below, the servants were crossing the courtyard, a few huddling along the walls to talk  amongst each other before rushing back to work. She raised an eyebrow as she saw Bann Loren’s young daughter tumbling along with some of the worker’s children, and smiled at the sound of their laughter.

 

She thought of fighting Cailan with wooden training swords when they were young and all the disapproving looks they got. That was what she missed most - her friend, when they were still oblivious to the plans that their fathers had for them, oblivious to the adults they would grow up to be. Cailan hadn’t been a good husband, but he had been her friend - her only friend in this whole castle. He’d sleep with other women and never remember to attend meetings but he would come into the office while she did paperwork and wrap his arms around her and tell her about his day, tell her a joke, make her laugh and drop the line in her shoulders for a few minutes.

 

And now she was alone.

 

A spot of cold landed on her forehead and she blinked, looking out the window again. It had begun to snow lightly. She tightened her wrap around her shoulders and sniffled. A snowfall might stop travel, stop any scheduled visitors - which meant she could finally take a rest from all the work.

 

It shouldn’t be so hard - the work. She’d always been the one making arrangements and organizing affairs, long before the Blight happened, but it was harder now. Harder without her friend, harder without her father to consult over dinner every month or two, harder knowing the nobles judged her for signing papers with Anora Theirin even though she had every right to use the name. It was hard to look at the statue of the Warden that had been erected in the center of Denrim with a plaque titling her ‘The Hero of Ferelden’, hard to look at the stone version of her glowing blue sword Starfang and remember it executing her father.

 

In a week, if the snow didn’t last, Tabris would be coming down from Amaranthine for the celebrations. It had been two years since the Blight ended. The kingdom was finally beginning to heal - there were no more reports of darkspawn on her desk, land claims had been sorted, and everything was good. Everything was supposed to be good.

 

But Anora was tired. Tired, and lonely, and she didn’t want to shake the hand of the woman who had killed her father with the same hands that had killed the Archdemon.

 

She didn’t always feel that way - she liked Tabris, genuinely liked the other woman. They talked sometimes, when Tabris came to visit the capital. They wrote politely worded letters about politics and always ended them with a single paragraph that verged on personal, friendly. Tabris was alone too. Anora thought, sometimes, if things had gone just a little differently, they would have been friends.

 

But the nobles always wanted her to hold speeches for all of Denerim to see in front of that statue. The speeches were full of praise for Tabris and all her accomplishments during the Blight and since, written by an official and handed to her hours before she had to read from it.

 

Last year, she’d stopped in the middle of reading because her eyes had run ahead and seen the line, “She dueled the traitor Loghain at the Landsmeet and executed him for his crimes.” She skipped that part, fired the writer immediately afterwards, and dug out the silverite armour her father had worn most of his life from the chest she had saved it in. It had been cleaned and polished before she put it away, but she remembered the blood splashing against her cheek, her dress, privately paying some servants to have the whole carpet replaced instead of just washing the stain out.

 

As if it wasn’t enough they’d torn down her father’s statue and carved the Warden’s directly on top, twice the size of what it had replaced.

 

So as much as she liked Tabris, the resentment ran far deeper.

 

Anora watched the snow begin to build on the ground - it was sticking, falling heavy and fast, and while it had rained only two days ago she was somehow sure it would last. The celebrations would have to be postponed.

 

Maybe it was alright, that she was alone. Just for awhile. She needed a bit of peace and quiet, some time to rest.

 

When she got up again, Anora promised herself, the work would still be hard, but she would just work harder.

  
  



End file.
